ASIC has received requests for more information about where the taxes collected on Savary go and how they are used. While ASIC is in no way connected to tax collection or distribution, we have compiled some information from the qathet Regional District (qRD) to share with you. For this newsletter we focused on the portion of the taxes that are collected and directly managed by the qRD (not taxes collected by the Province which fund things like schools, police, BC Assessment, the Municpal Finance Authority, etc).
Some fast facts:
- How much comes from Savary in terms of tax dollars?
- $873,290 was collected from Savary in 2021 for the qRD
- What is the breakdown of that $873,290?
- $255,944 was collected for the greater regional services
- $184,076 was collected for Electoral Area (i.e. Area A) Shared Service
- $1,530 was collected for grants in aid – individual area*
- $241,740 was collected for the Savary Island Fire Service*
- $190,000 was collected for the Savary Island Marine Service*
Note – You will also see a tax for the Powell River Regional Hospital District
While all areas in the regional district pay taxes that go to fund a portion of facilities and administration in Powell RIver that we have access to (library, animal shelter, general waste management, emergency services) the critical thing to pay attention to is the funds that go back directly into Savary-specific items (which are starred above). Here is the detailed overview of taxes for Savary compared to the other areas of the Regional District. https://mcusercontent.com/116ac7faa65f871b72e219b0b/files/bb602a00-e1c7-62f3-8904-2702bb7e41ca/3.8_Tax_Rates_All_Areas_qathet_Regional_District.pdfI
It is interesting to compare and contrast the taxes for places like Texada and Lund, i.e. Texada has a similar haul of taxes from their population base but they use their Texada-specific funds in very different ways. While property taxes are a hot topic right now due to the substantial increases in property assessed values, it is important to understand how they are used and allocated so we as islanders can make informed decisions moving ahead. While it is true that we pay for some services we don’t have much access to, we also make choices about what we do NOT get access to because we don’t have some of the tax lines that other places have in place.